


Eigengrau: Color Seen by the Eye in Perfect Darkness

by D_Reagan_Fly



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Author loves her characters and readers, Author regrets nothing, Betrayal, Childhood abandonment, Death, Gavriel being a mother hen, Graphic Violence, Just D. dumping pain and long drawn out agony into your hearts, Memory Alteration, Mission: Rescue Aelin, Nothing new here people, Pain, Promise, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, author regrets everything, experimenting, first ToG fanfic, post empire of storms, sad Rowan :'(
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-06-30 08:37:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15748152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_Reagan_Fly/pseuds/D_Reagan_Fly
Summary: Elide flies off with the witches to claim her Blackbeak heritage. Rowan, Gavriel and Lorcan set out across land in pursuit of Aelin while the Whitethorn clan takes the long way there by boat. As they're travelling however, Rowan is quickly losing hope and Gavriel begins to notice concerning changes in Lorcan. They all want to rescue their Queen, but loyalties are fickle, death is unbiased, secrets are rising to the surface, and memories-- long forgotten for a reason-- may be the undoing of them all.





	1. Blackbeak Fury

**Author's Note:**

> This is me exploring the world of ToG in fanficiton for the first time. I've read all the ToG series, but there's so much there I'm just going to put a disclaimer in here and say please have patience if I mess a few facts up. :) 
> 
> I latched onto Lorcan's character in Empire of Storms and my heart isn't letting go. Figures, he's a Loki/Ward/Kylo Ren character who does awful things and yet is still drowning in angst. So therefore, D. must redeem. Apparently I have an obsession with redemption, but that's okay with me. Most of the plot revolves around Lorcan but there's lot's of Gavriel, Rowaelin and all those beautiful characters we know and love (or as in Maeve's case, hate with an unhealthy passion). 
> 
> I don't know if I'll keep going with this one, but I'm trying new things. So, yay! The other characters get a break from my merciless story lines! ;) 
> 
> PLEASE COMMENT! I'm much more likely to continue when I hear what y'all are thinking and feeling. :) 
> 
> -D.

Chapter One  


Fury. Fury that hurt. Fury and pain and grief that skinned the thin layer of flesh away from the inside of her ribcage and stuffed the remnants in the sacks of her lungs. Her soul wailed in her chest for her Queen. Her Aelin. The star in that sky she’d looked for every night in her tower. The fairytale her nursery maid told her every night that kept her child heart beating against the well of hopelessness and pain that always tried to drown her. The hope her mother had died for.  


Gone.  


That light was gone.  


There was no star.  


There was no fairytale.  


There was no hope left to live, or die for.  


Gone.  


Lorcan was struggling to get to his feet. She’d never seen him struggle to rise before. Never seen him in that kind of pain. It wasn’t enough pain. As that fury twisted her heart and wrung her soul dry, she felt every bit a witch and not an ounce of human, and with a glance over at Manon who gave her a frozen nod of approval, she stalked over to the dark haired fae male.  


“I hope you spend the rest of your miserable, immortal life suffering.” She did. Nothing in her flinched at that, or at the tear streaks down his face, or at the brief flicker of pain as her words hit home before he expertly wiped emotion off his face as he’d been doing for centuries. This witch in her growelled. “I hope you spend it alone. I hope you live with regret and guilt in your heart and never find a way to endure it.”  


She turned her back on him and walked to Manon who gave her a wicked grin to welcome her home. Aestrin lifted an inviting arm and Elide slipped beneath it. Slide into her new home of iron teeth and braided hair and the beat of Wyvyrns wings.  


Gone was the cold of the tower.  


Gone was the dark of Morath.  


Gone was the safety in Lorcan’s arms.  


Gone was the warmth of her place in Aelin’s fiery heart. 

Manon spoke briefly to the males before striding back with that brisk, confidant pace and ice cruel face that she had worn since the first time Elide met her.  


“North?” Aestrin asked, with that wicked grin of hers.  


Manon only nodded and sent a sharp glance at Elide as though she thought to say something, but then her lips pursed into a thin line and those gold eyes hardened. She said nothing as she mounted Abraxos.  


“Ride with me little Blackbeak.” Aestrin offered a hand down to the girl from Terrasan.  


But gone was Elide Lochan.  


And born was Elide Blackbeak.


	2. Dreaming of Death

Chapter Two  


There was a sharp pain still writhing in the center of Lorcan’s torso, just below his rib cage, that ached with every breath he took. Even worse, something in his heart shuttered and died as Elide flew off on a Wyvrn’s back without giving him a second glance. But neither pain was anything compared to watching Rowan stare out at the sea after his mate.  


His mate.  


There were few sins that were strong enough to stain Loran’s blackened soul, but this one… this one would.  


If faced with it, Lorcan didn’t hesitate to kill. He had no qualms about who, if they were marked as the enemy. He’d even kill Rowan without batting an eye if they were placed on opposite sides. But to kill the male’s mate?  


And he might as well have. Maeve or Cairn or another of Maeve’s slaves would probably finish her. But it was Lorcan who had sold her. Sold Rowan’s mate off like a lamb to the slaughter. At her weakest point. When her mate wasn’t with her. To Maeve. And Lorcan knew all too well what the Dark Queen had planned for the girl.  


That pain writhed in Lorcan’s belly a sharp, merciless cold acute agony that emanated from a point no bigger than an arrow shaft at the apex of his abdomen.  


He deserved it. He knew he did. He’d sold out a Cadre’s mate. There was no sin greater in his book than it other the murder of one of their children. His black gaze watched Aedion stalk across the beach a few steps behind Lysandra-posed-as-Aelin. A shudder ran through his bone marrow. Suddenly glad that Aedion hadn't been on the beach. That Maeve hadn’t known to question Lorcan about him.  


Rowan sat down on the beach facing the sea as Gavriel shot Lorcan a withering look laced with warning before he strode off toward the shoreline and the boats farther out to figureo ut what to do. Lorcan retreated a few steps back from the Prince, and leaned against a boulder to keep an eye on him. Make sure he didn’t hurl himself into the ocean to drown or something. Lorcan slammed his eyes shut at the thought. He’d seen mates lose each other before. Seen Rowan right after Lyria, trained Rowan in the wake of that grief, kept a close enough eye on the male to catch him each time he attempted ending his own life. Three times.  


And Lyria hadn’t even been Rowan’s true mate. Just a female he loved with all his loyalty. Rowan was too loyal for his own good.  
A frozen breeze whipped at the salt waves and the silver haired prince bowed his head. Lorcan shifted to lean his side against the boulder and face away as Rowan’s shoulders began to shake.  


The gold of the sun danced on the turquoise of the sea and the skeleton’s of the ships sinking. The other Whitethorn ships were circling around to pick up survivors in the water. Offering mercy for fealty or none in execution. Gavriel dove into the sea and swam out to meet them. How he was able to swim after what Maeve had done, Lorcan had no idea. He was having a hard time breathing.  


Another of those icy arrow shafts of pain shot through his middle so close to the original pain when Maeve had broken his blood oath. Lorcan shuddered as his world flickered black.  


****  


Gavriel explained the situation to Rowan’s kin. Lord Endymion had taken half the fleet to follow the false Aelin and half to follow Rowan and help return the real Aelin. Gavriel explained that they would be committing a treason worse than even turning on Maeve’s armada. They would be going after the Queen herself and her prize prisoner.  


“For my cousin’s mate.” the Lord had shaken his head, face solem. “We would do no less. Please send word to my court as soon as you enter fae territory.” The male said though. “Tell them to flee to Terrasen. I will meet them there.”  


Gavriel bowed and swore to do so.  


“And take care of him.” Endymoin’s Whitethorn green eyes were jaded and grieved. “He should not have to face this pain twice.”  


Again. Gavriel swore to do so.  


Like Endymion, Gavriel would do no less for Rowan’s mate.  


They were left with two ships full of Fae warriors, the Caidy’s Current and the Rose’s Thorn. Both in fairly decent shape, but in need of repair still. Caidy’s center mast had a seam starting to split it and Rose’s hull had a breach. They had to row both ships to shore and bank them on the beach for repairs, where Gavriel gave orders for them to make a camp and set fires even as the rest of the court-- fae, human, assassins, soldiers, kings, a queen’s face and a General forced to hide his grief-- faded off into the blood of the setting sun over the salt of the sea.  


Gavriel sighed. He had not been allowed to know his son well, but any could see how much the boy loved Aelin. How could he not? If Gavriel’s suspicions were correct, the Queen was the General’s only family he would willingly claim. His only tie to home. His only hope to having that home again. It was as much for his son’s sake as it was for Rowan’s that Gavriel would stop at nothing to return the Queen-- alive-- to safer shores. He prayed to anyone who would listen that they would grant him this one request. He had never asked for much in his entire life. Surely the gods would favor this one in light of it being for their blessed one.  


He glanced away from where several warriors were building a fire and to the other two former cadre who sat in darkness already even though the camp still struggled through dusk. Rowan’s silver hair glinted in the moonlight, unmoved from where he’d last kneeled when Gavriel left him. Although Gavriel’s eyes scanned the silver beach for the darker of the two males, Lorcan was nowhere to be seen.  


He frowned and began approaching the Prince. Lorcan had sworn his aide and they stood little chance without him. His dark net of death and black webs was likely the only thing that could hold off Maeve’s own inky power at bay for more than a few minutes. He was probably just around the corner sulking somewhere, but it couldn’t hurt to check.  


Gavriel sighed. The journey by foot that the three of them would make would be… difficult to say the least. Rowan and Lorcan. Both of the males at the same time was insufferable as was. Right after Aelin’s capture, in which Lorcan had a major hand? Some fate-weaver was taking too much delight in making Gavriel’s life hell.  


He almost passed right by Lorcan, if he hadn’t been up wind of him he would have completely. But the scent of midnight rain tainted with the unmistakable twinge of fear and pain hit the gold-eyed male like a storm front. He snapped around to the left. Lorcan was unconscious. The dark haired male was pressed against a large stone boulder and Gavriel did a double take. Sleeping? Just decided to sit down and take a nap? Not likely.  


Immediately Gavriel froze, eyes going straight to Lorcan’s chest, looking for the rise and fall of breath as he held his own. His ears strained to hear a threat, his nostrils flaring to take in every scent. If something rendered Lorcan unconscious it was dangerous enough to kill the unaware Prince on the beach.  


“Lorcan.” Gavriel hissed. Loudly enough to make Rowan shift around, but not enough to rouse Lorcan. Unconscious then. Not sleeping.  


Gavriel sniffed the air again--fear. Tangible fear. Was it lingering from an attack though? Or was it something Lorcan was seeing whilst unconscious? He glanced at Whitethorn from the corner of his eye, raising his brow in question. Did you do this? Not that Gavriel would do anything about it if he had, he had every right to. But Rowan shook his head, red rimmed eyes instantly alert and scanning the treeline for the threat. Gavriel didn’t smell anyone, or anything, else threatening in the area so he crept a bit closer to the dark male.  


“Lorcan!” he snapped, louder this time. Nothing. Gavriel was surprised at the pounding of his own heart. He nudged Lorcan with his boot. Nothing.  


“Is he--?” Rowan asked numbly. Dead. That’s what he couldn’t bring himself to say. Again. Another. Dead. Gavriel shook his head. Lorcan was not dead and more importantly, neither was Aelin and he gave Rowan a pointed look that said as much before kneeling next to Lorcan and sending a bolt of gold light through his forehead to wake the male up.  


The next second he was on the ground a snarling demi-fae male, poised for a kill, inches from his face.  


***  


Lorcan was only dimly aware that he was dreaming. He had to be. He was just… somewhere important… he couldn't remember where. And he was with someone… he didn’t remember who. And now he was somewhere else, and he was alone. Silence settling around him like a heavy cloak.  


But the cool water felt so real threading through his fingers as he treaded water under a grey marbled sky. The cold bit at his bare legs and made them numb and an uncomfortable--though not unpleasant-- tingling gripping at them. He was aware that he was much smaller here. A child? The freezing temperature of the lake pressing an unrelenting fist into his stomach and he found it hard to breath, but as he let himself float on his back, the water so smooth it reflected every wisp of smoldering cloud perfectly, he felt content here in the cold. He’d really not known anything else after all.  


“Lorcan!”  


That voice… he knew that voice. Even in the cold, something warm in him sung at the sound of that voice. He let his legs-- that were indeed a child’s pair for some reason-- sink beneath the surface and twisted around backwards to try and find the source of that voice. There was no one on the shore.  


“Lorcan!” Someone called again, louder this time.  


He windmilled about in the water; little arms were so weak, he noted. The shores here were black sand, as though the rock they’d been ground of was the night sky itself. The cold water splashed around him, laughing at him as he tried to find that voice.  


“Lorcan, come back! You’ll freeze to death out there!”  


He couldn’t tell if it was male or female, young or old, just that it was owned by someone who who was precious to him. Someone who belonged to him.  


“Lorcan!” This time the voice screamed his name. Panic and pain.  


He bolted for the shore. Little arms paddling as fast as they could muster he hurtled toward the black shoreline, not caring if someone saw how fast he was going and realized he wasn’t completely human. The voice needed him. That voice…  


“LORCAN!”  


His hands scraped as they hit the sand. It was jagged and sharp, not soft and warm like he’d heard some beaches were. It was black, and jagged, and frozen in a sheen of ice. Blood throbbed from his palms and you could barely see it against the black of the sand. His knees and soles of his feet split and bled as he scrambled up and sprinted toward the voice that was wailing now, wailing in terror and agony. Screaming for him.  


“Lorcan! Lorcan! Please! Please! No! No no no no--”  


Was it Elide? It sounded like Elide. His heart hammered in his chest and pumped through sliced his hands and knees and feet. On the outer rim of the shore a thin blanket of snow had settled and in darkened with the red of his blood.  


“Where are you!?” He screamed for her. “Elide?”  


“Lorcan!”  


He sprinted into a black forest, trees like tombstones fire blackened and branchless.  


“Lorcan!”  


He spun around desperately and caught a fleeing figure.  


“Lorcan!”  


Just a whisper now. A body in the snow. A thick black braid slick with blood. Cold, unmoving fingers. Nearly as white at the snow they had gripped at. Had gripped, before they slackened. Before the breath left those lips and the light left those dark eyes.  


He was still screaming when someone lunged out from the treeline--

  
  
  


Gold eyes stared back at him cautiously. A strong hand fell from his forehead to rest warningly against his throat. He knew that face. Knew those eyes. KNew that hand didn’t want to kill him, but would-- Gavriel.  


He lurched back, head pounding and hit the boulder with his back. Rowan was a few feet away, blade drawn, lips dropping from their snarl. Rowan. Gavriel.  


“Lorcan!”  


He flinched away from the voice and shuddered as another pain shot through his abdomen. White hot, icy pain.  


“Are you alright?” Gavriel was sitting up calmly. As though Lorcan hadn’t been seconds away from tearing his throat out. Lorcan shuddered.  


Then he schooled his face.  


“Fine.” He snapped. Gavriel raised a unbelieving eyebrow and pursed his lips. “I’m fine.” Lorcan surged to his feet and swayed for a moment, Gavriel leaping up to catch him. But he caught himself. He always did. He snarled Gavriel away, ignoring the twin questions burning in two pairs of Fae eyes as he strode to a camp that had suddenly appeared. A fire was burning. It was nightfall.  


He didn’t remember them coming in.  


He didn’t remember Gavriel coming back.  


He didn’t remember Rowan getting up.  


He didn’t remember falling asleep.  


He remembered cold. Black trees. A dark bloody braid. And red staining the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I continue with this one? Is there interest in it? Let me know what you think! 
> 
> -D.
> 
> P.S. Thanks for your immediate feedback Lana! :)


	3. Don't Remember

Chapter Three  


They’d only split from the ships and traveled on foot for three days since they reached the continent, and Gavriel was already having to consider what to do if he ended up being the only one to make it to Doranelle. Rowan rarely left his hawk form anymore and even when in fae form he kept speech to the minimum.  


He hadn’t spoken a word to Lorcan since the beach. In fact Lorcan hadn’t spoken a word to Rowan since they left the beach either. The two weeks crossing the ocean was a quite battle of will and silence. Both males did a lot of staring out into nothing, sleeping fitfully and eating very little, but speaking they did poorly.  


Rowan, Gavriel understood. He’d been separated from his wife and mate so soon after a bond that deep settled. The fear and pain of losing her to Maeve was enough that a weaker male might have lost his mind altogether at this point. But Rowan, although his speech seemed to be dammed up, continued on stubbornly like Gavriel knew he would until they freed Aelin or he held her body in his own arms. Gavriel sighed heavily through his nose and glanced up at the other two males over his soup bowl.  


Rowan was pale, his expression blank and absent, watching the flames with an empty bowl in his hands. He had the bowl like he thought he might try to eat. But thirty minutes after Gavriel finished the stew he still hadn't reached for the ladle. Lorcan hadn’t even picked up a bowl at all.  


The dark smudges under Lorcan’s eyes and the exhaustion that twisted through his scent made Gavriel all too aware that the male hadn’t slept since his strange episode on the beach three weeks ago. He’d watched the dark haired male go three weeks without sleep before, so he knew it wasn’t a fatal concern. But he wasn’t exactly looking forward to reliving that experience: Sleep deprived Lorcan. On the bright side Maeve wasn’t going to like facing that either.  


“Rowan and I can take watch tonight, Lorcan.” Gavriel said casually, making sure not to let any concern bleed into his tone. Both males would snap at that. “How about you take watch tomorrow and sleep tonight.” Compromise. Pure and simple. Not charity.  


A pair of onyx eyes lifted from the flames of the fire to meet his and somehow they burned fiercer than the flame.  


“Why?”  


Leave it to Lorcan. Ever suspicious, kindness hating, compassion killing Lorcan to ask that. Why?  


“Because you’re the only one of us who hasn’t taken a night off watch.” Gavriel still tried to avoid the concern weighted behind the suggestion.  


Lorcan shrugged and stood up to stretch.  


“Rowan looks like he needs it more.”  


Then he stalked off into the woods for more wood. Oh, so he could remember to feed the fire but not himself, was that it? Gavriel grit his teeth and had to remind himself that Lorcan did this. It was nothing new. After 300 years of knowing the male he should be used to it.  


“He really hasn’t taken a night?” Rowan asked with a furrowed brow. Well, maybe Lorcan had a point. The ever observant Rowan was… not ever observant at this point. He probably did need to take the night more than Lorcan. Gavriel hated that Lorcan was usually right about Rowan. When they’d first started training Rowan, Gavriel had been the one to befriend the male, but it was Lorcan-- dark, bitter, friendless, unsociable Lorcan-- that had been able to predict Rowan like a witch could smell the weather.  


Gavriel winced. Maybe it was the separation from the dark haired human witchiling girl that was setting Lorcan off? No, not likely. He’d known the girl for a maximum of two months, likely less than that… and their scents weren’t twined. They weren’t even sleeping together, much less mates. The relationship was too early to cause this sort of reaction in Lorcan.  


“What’s up with him?” Rowan muttered, finally going for the soup.  


Gavriel shrugged. “He’s just angry. Same old Lorcan.”  


But it wasn’t the same old Lorcan, it was just that neither of them wanted to voice it. At least Gavriel didn’t want to. His leading theory right now was that Maeve did something to him when she broke his blood oath. He could smell pain in the other male, but it was masked heavily by Lorcan’s power, so Gavriel had no way of knowing how bad it was. When he’d asked Lorcan had given him a look as though he’d just asked the dumbest question he’d ever heard in his five-hundred plus years and then proceeded to ignore Gavriel for a while.  


For the oldest male in the Cadre, Lorcan could be the most childish at times.  


Rowan accepted the ‘same old Lorcan’ answer, likely because he was too tired, and worried, and angry to really have the energy to try and dive into the dark mess of why 

Lorcan behaved the way he did. Gavriel snorted and took another bite of soup. Maybe he should take a page out of Rowan’s book.  


He remembered when he’d thought Rowan was a lost cause. Lorcan, Gavriel, and Vaughan were on their way back from destroying a rebelling population of Fae along the eastern border. Vaughan, of course, said nothing when Lorcan brought the half-starved silver haired male back to the campfire, but Gavriel had none of that wisdom at the time.  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Whose this?” Gavriel asked, sizing up the broad frame that should be more than skin and bone.  


There was no answer. The male’s pale green eyes watched the flame listlessly, as though entranced by it. Lorcan grabbed a ladle and shovelled some into his own bowl before lightly kicking the silver haired male on the shin. Green eyes focussed and he started a bit.  


“My brother asked you something.” Lorcan snapped, but it wasn’t completely ungentle.  


Gavriel frowned and tasted the new male’s scent on the wind. Pain. Loning. Regret.  


Mateless.  


Gavriel’s heart stuttered in his chest. Oh.  


The mateless male licked a pair of desperately chapped lips as he looked at the soup bowl in Lorcan’s hands.  


“What’s your name?” Lorcan prompted again.  


“R-Rowan.” The male rasped. “Whitethorn.”  


Gavriel swore the flames themselves froze in mid leap. Rowan Whitethorn. Prince of Doranelle.  


Lorcan froze as well dark eyes wide, but he mastered his shock quicker than Gavriel and Vaughan. A wicked grin split Lorcan’s face and he slapped the new male on the back before offering him his soup. The three of them watched Rowan wolf down first one bowl, then two, then four bowls of soup before they settled down for the night. Gavriel figured the only reason Rowan stopped at four was because they ran out after that. Lorcan was watching Rowan with a different sort of interest though, less interested in what the male was eating and more interested in what the male had the potential to be.  


Over the next few months they delayed their way back to Doranelle and worked on nursing the silver haired male back into presentable health as well as Lorcan’s new obsession with training him. At first Gavriel couldn’t even see the potential that Lorcan did. All he saw was a heartbroken, mateless male who repeatedly gave up hope and tried to end himself. But Lorcan saw untapped wells of power beneath the stormy surface of that grief. Lorcan saw a warrior’s frame that had only ever been taught to spar and dance. Never destroy.  


And by the time they got back into Doranelle, Lorcan had shaped that listless, heartbroken creature into a prize valuable enough to catch even Maeve’s eye.  


“How did you know?” Gavriel asked Lorcan at one point as they watched Rowan demolish a male two times his age and size without even touching his magic. They were in a drinking house in Doranelle, waiting to hear from Maeve if she indeed wanted Rowan to swear the blood oath. Rowan had already promised he would, should the Queen call.  


Lorcan’s onyx eyes tracked Rowan’s movements. Ever assessing. Ever training. Ever plotting. He was the perfect Commander for Maeve’s cadre.  
But the commander just shrugged and offered Gavriel an honest frown.  


“I don’t know.” He admitted for the first time since Gavriel met him. “But the potential came through.”  


It wasn’t a boast, it was a contemplation. He honestly didn’t have any idea what it was he saw in Rowan. It wasn’t as though he’d picked up on a scent or a piece of information that Gavriel missed, it was just that he guessed. And he was right.  
  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gavriel watched Rowan through the flames again wondered if Lorcan saw something now in the silver haired male that Gavriel was still missing. If Rowan saw something in Lorcan that Gavriel was missing. They were like two sides to the same blade. One mercy, one cruelty. One old before he even settled, one still young in many ways. One full blooded Fae, one half-blooded. One light, one dark. And at least when they travelled together in the past, these two were the two that seemed to understand why the other did what he did the best; save Fenrys and Connall.  


Rowan finished half of his soup and set the other half aside uninterestedly.  


“Should I take a watch?” He asked Gavriel quietly.  


Gavriel sighed and glanced out into the black of the woods Lorcan had disappeared into. He shrugged and gave Rowan a tired smile.  


“No, Lorcan is going to refuse to sleep anyways, so you might as well save your strength. You’re no good to Aelin half dead you know.”  


Rowan’s eyes flashed in pain but he nodded and pulled his roll from his pack. Gavriel watched the dark shade that Lorcan had disappeared into in contemplation and was only yanked from it when Rowan said from the warmth of his bed roll,  


“You’re worried. About Lorcan.” There was a question in that statement.  


Gavriel’s gold eyes met Rowan’s green and he shrugged. “Of course I am. That’s what I do.” He tried to make light of it and it failed miserably.  


“Your son does the same thing.” Rowan offered Gavriel a small smile. “It drives Aelin off the walls.”  


Gavriel felt his heart swell as he tucked away that piece of knowledge about his son. The smile he offered Rowan was genuine, before the silver haired male turned over on his other side and tried to settle off to sleep.  


Lorcan still hadn’t returned.  


***  


“Take the night.” Lorcan muttered to himself as he snapped several sticks down to burnable size. Gavriel could be such a mother hen sometimes. And not a smart one either. IF he’d been aware enough, he’d have realized that Rowan was already practically dead on his feet which meant that not only was he struggling to cope with Aelin’s unknown fate, but his magic was likely suffering as well as his carranam was slowly forced into an early death and her own magic flickered down into embers. Obviously Rowan needed the night more.  


Lorcan grit his teeth at the image that rose unbidden of Aelin on that beach; blonde hair limp and blood stained along the edges, strong shoulders sagging in defeat, back arching with every crack of Cairn’s whip, and yet refusing to count. Lorcan growled and cracked a small log over his knee.  


It was good that Elide got away from him while she still could. She’d be safer with witches than with a back stabbing half-breed like him.  


Aelin had known.  


Perhaps that was the worst of it all. That Aelin had known the moment he betrayed them and carried him along in her company anyways. She could have spoken the word and Rowan would had turned around and killed him. He had no doubt that the male was an equal in magic and what he lacked in the experience Lorcan had, he made up for in raw talent and grit. She could have even asked Gavriel, or Fenrys. They wouldn’t have hesitated-- well, Gavriel might have, but that was because he was a worrying mother hen. Fenrys would have gladly killed him. Gods, the shapeshifter could have shifted into Lorcan himself and killed him easily.  


He smirked at that one. That was his favorite. Killed by himself in another form.  


Needless to say, Aelin didn’t have to put up with him. She probably could have thrown him overboard herself. He couldn’t swim well, it would have taken probably 30 minutes and he’d be well and drowned--  


He frowned. He had been swimming in his dream. Swimming? Of course he could swim, barely, but he avoided it at all costs. He wasn’t a strong swimmer. He sunk like a rock. Besides, you never knew what beasts were sharing the water with you. He heard Rowan almost got a young demi-fae eaten alive by a water beast when he was training Aelin.  


'At least it was a demi-fae,' he could almost hear Maeve’s voice in his head. 'Those, at least, are expendable.'  


He wondered if the young male knew he was expendable. Or if he had some semblance of a family around to convince him otherwise. Likely he was completely aware that Rowan, a pure blooded fae prince, had every right to get him eaten in a training exercise. There were laws against killing Demi-Fae, but a purebred fae was exempt from such restrictions.  


Something dark and twisted tightened in Lorcan’s chest, but he quickly brushed past it. He’d been aware of the conditions his peop-- demi- fae lived under since he was a child over five hundred years ago. Rowan Whitethorn was one of the most unbiased pure-bloods he’d ever met. Lorcan didn’t even know the demi-fae youngling, so it shouldn’t bother him that badly. And it’s not as though they’d ever been family to him anyways.  


He spun on his heel, arms full of splinters logs, in a satisfying sweat. He was probably a mile out, just close enough to smell the fire, when another icy white pain shot through his belly and dropped him like a lance. The wood clattered around him and his mouth dropped open in silent agony. HIs hands clawed at his shirt, trying to yank it off. 

What was it! Was it inside of him? Was it a wound. He broke out into a heavier sweat and doubled over groaning.  


He’d never-- never-- the pain-- he couldn’t breathe-- he should get to cover if he was going to pass out all the way out here. Cover. Get. To. Cover. He reached for the ground and started to crawl for a tree trunk. He made it a foot before the agony in his belly split him open from the inside out and he collapsed into the waiting arms of darkness. 

 

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A child was screaming. That was the first thing he was aware of when he woke up.  


He woke up. He actually woke up. In a different place. In a different body. A different time. But he was fully aware of the rough feel of what little clothing he wore, of the rough grip of human hands clamped around either of his arms, or the screaming tune of a child.  


In fact, he was a child. The human’s hands easily gripped around either of his upper arms so tightly his fingers were starting to tingle with the lack of circulation.  


He struggled against the man’s grip and felt his heart catch in his throat when he realized the man was far, far stronger than he. He was helpless. But it did nothing to still his squirming and biting and growling.  


“Good gods!” The man laughed and pulled Lorcan against his leg. Lorcan’s head reached the man’s hip at very best. “He’s more animal that human!”  


“It's half-fae.” A woman’s voice sneered and Lorcan’s head whipped up to look at a brown-haired woman with onyx eyes. “So don’t expect him to behave like a person.”  


Something cold and hollow rattled about in his little rib cage and bruised inside his chest. He stared at the woman in… betrayal. He didn’t know who she was except that he was supposed to trust her above all others. She sneered down at him and held out a hand to the man that was restraining him.  


The man hesitated.  


“How old?”  


“Four.”  


“Can he even talk?”  


“He can but he doesn’t. Look, do you want him or not? If so, just pay me and worry about training him yourself. If not, I’ll take him back. I’ll get a better price off someone else.” The hand started reaching for him and something inside him ripped in half.  


Half of him wanted to launch himself into those slender hands that he’d admired as they knit and stitched and kneaded sourdough. Those hands that he’d always imagined might someday reach over to his cupboard and stroke through his hair like they did to the real children.  


But the other half of him was revolted by his want of affection from those hands. Half of him wanted to reach out and snap those pretty fingers off her hand and see if she screamed like he did when she held his hand to the stove.  


“How do I know he won’t run off as soon as I pay you?”  


“I keep him tied up.” Was the answer.  


Lorcan snarled and tried to twist out of the man’s grasp. He snapped his head forward and bit the man’s hand so hard he felt copper burst into his mouth. The man started yelling words four year old Lorcan had never heard before but he didn't stop to listen. He bolted away only to be snagged by the woman he was supposed to trust above all others. She grabbed his collar, choking him, and threw him to the ground easily being at least three times his size. He saw the sharp toed shoe coming but didn’t have time to curl up fast enough before it connected with his belly. The air betrayed his lungs and pain ripped through him like fire.  


The other child he couldn’t see was screaming from inside the house. Screaming hard enough to tear a throat as the sharp toed boot whipped back and snapped forward again to strike his head. He went limp, snarling died in his chest as pain and light throbbed through his head. He couldn’t really think as those slender woman’s hands scooped him off the ground and said,  


“Four coppers. Take it or leave it.”  


It took him no time at all to know that the ‘it’ was him.  


“I’ll take him. You got a rope?”  


“Of course. Loien!” A tall, dark haired boy stepped out of the house that was screaming and shut the door.  


“Yes, mother?”  


“Fetch this gentlemen a rope please.”  


Solem onyx eyes, so much warmer than the woman’s, found Lorcan’s that couldn’t focus.  


“Mother, please--” The older boy started, face twisting in pain, silver lining his eyes.  


“Loien!” The woman hissed. “Do as I say, right now!”  


“But mother! Please! I’ll take care of him! I-- you won’t even have to see him! I’ll feed him and keep him out in the barn and--”  


“Loien, you will get that rope.” The woman hissed. “Or I’ll throw you out with the Fae.”  


Loien opened his mouth, tears shining in his eyes as he thought to protest. But then he took one look at the man going through his hefty coin purse and dropped his gaze from Lorcan’s. Lorcan tried to call out to him as he ran to the barn to get a rope, but his head was rattling like a snake tail and he couldn’t get anymore than a whimper out.  


“You didn’t break him, did you?” The man hesitated before handing the coppers to the woman. Lorcan knew he would never forget what the coppers looked like in those long, slender fingers that stroked the real children’s hair as they fell asleep.  


“Of course not.” She snapped. “I told you he’s a half-fae. He’s taken much harder blows than that.”  


The man grunted in satisfaction as Loien ran back over with the rope.  


“Tie the fae up and then get back to the house to watch the other children.” The woman he was supposed to trust above all others snapped to Loien as she tossed Lorcan into the older boy’s arms. “I’m going to town for a drink.”  


And patting the four coppers in her purse satisfied, she walked down the dirt path from their crooked house and turned onto the road.  


Loien lowered Lorcan to the ground and sat him up, even his twelve year old hands were much bigger than Loran’s face. A pair of sad onyx eyes traced the bruise already blooming across the four year old’s face.  


“Maybe this is better.” Loien murmured, taking his brother’s hands in his own to tie them. Lorcan tried to struggle but was too dizzy. A child was still screaming in the house. Loien held Lorcan still as the half-blood tried to struggle away. The man was waiting impatiently as Loien cut another rope and started on Lorcan’s ankles. “When I’m old enough, I’ll find you.” The boy whispered as he cinched the noose around each ankle. Tears made dirty tracks down the older boy’s face. “I promise I’m going to find you.”  


“Oh, just give him here already!” The man snapped.  


Loien picked Lorcan up gently, around the shoulders and beneath the knees. The other children begged to be held like this, ‘like a baby’. But Lorcan had never been brave enough to ask Loien to be held like this before. His head fell against his older brother’s chest and his tears made a wet stain on the boy’s blue shirt.  


Loien walked over to the man who grabbed Lorcan around the waist and through him over his shoulder like a goat. The world swayed dangerously and his brain twisted nauseously in his skull.  


“Don’t hurt him!” Loien begged, silver glass swimming over his onyx eyes. “Please don’t hurt him! He’s just a baby!”  


“I paid for him fair and square.” The man hissed, shoving Loien away. The older boy tripped and fell on his backside in the dust. “I’ll do with him as I please.”  


The world rocked and swayed as the man strode out to the road, away from the screaming house and the crying boy and the woman he was supposed to trust above all others.  


“I’ll find you, Lor!” The boy choked again. “I promise! When I’m big enough I’ll find--”

 

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lorcan snapped awake with a gasp and he was surrounded by silent trees and midnight dew. His breath came heavily in his chest and his hand flew to his face as though he might find a bruise there. Of course, he didn’t. That didn't actually happened. It was just a dream. He came from--  


Well, he didn’t remember where he came from. Or how he got there. Or who he came from. But it was five hundred years ago. Of course he didn’t remember.  


He didn’t remember a screaming house, or a woman he was supposed to trust above all others, or a crying boy… He did remember a pair of warm onyx eyes set in a weathered human face though…  


He remembered a human merchant, or a salesman of some kind venturing to Doranelle. One of the only humans with good enough products to be allowed in, Maeve had been interested in his sale of precious metals and had allowed him to enter when he requested to do so. He remembered the old human taking unusual interest in him standing guard behind Maeve but he figured it was either that the man could tell he had human blood and wondered why Maeve would let a half-blood guard her, or that he was assessing Lorcan as a threat. What exactly did he have to do wrong before the Dark Queen gave the order for the dark warrior behind her to kill him like he had others?  


The most confusing part of the exchange was when Lorcan saw him the next day as he left the city and the old man looked up at him and said,  


“You don’t remember me, do you?”  


And of course Lorcan didn’t because why would he remember some random old human? They aged so quickly it seemed like they were all old.  


The aged man smiled sadly and shook his head.  


“That’s alright. I found you, like I promised. I’m sorry it took me so long.”  


Lorcan had frowned at him and informed him that he had no idea who he was, or why he thought he needed to find Lorcan, but that it didn’t matter because Maeve had ordered that he leave that day before noon so he’d better hurry up.  


The old man’s shoulders dropped and his his expression twisted but he offered another conflicted smile before saying,  


“Of course. Forgive my imprudence, sir. You just remind me of someone I used to know.”  


Then the bent over old human walked out of Doranelle and Lorcan never saw him again. Maeve found a better supplier. But his scent lingered though in Lorcan’s memory, likely the only reason he remembered him now. He smelled familiar. Like someone he used to know as well.  


But he couldn’t remember who.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loien: pronounced (Low-Ian) 
> 
> Continue? Yes? No? Maybe so?


	4. Confrontations, Contemplations, and Carnivores

Chapter Four  


Lorcan didn’t return for three hours.  


Gavriel was giving him five more minutes before he woke Rowan up and they went looking for him. He clenched his jaw and went through every detail he could, looking for weaknesses. Was Lorcan pale? Did he sway at all when he got up? Did he smell sick? Was it possible he was ambushed out there? By what though? What could take out the Commander without so much as a sound?  


Several ideas flashed through his head. All of them Valg.  


Three minutes.  


Gavriel turned on his heel and paced the length of the clearing again. Lorcan was hiding something. Something was hurting him, or manipulating him, or-- then one of the most terrifying thoughts flashed through Gavriel’s mind.  


What if Maeve hadn’t actually released Lorcan from his blood oath? She drew blood from a different place than she did Gavriel’s… Lorcan had still crawled after her as if still in her thrall. He’d collapsed in pain like Gavriel had, but Maeve had plenty of tricks up her sleeve to cause pain with. And many of them lasted longer than the blood oath just as Lorcan’s pain seemed to be lingering. Still… Lorcan had had the same symptoms except that his lingered longer… and Maeve had recited the correct disavowing. Gavriel could hear every word ot it still.  


There was just no way to tell. Lorcan might not even be aware if he was still under Maeve’s control. Or Maeve had done something to him to ensure he wasn't a threat when they came to fight for Aelin.  


Gavriel started cursing under his breath.  


One minute.  


He walked over to wake Rowan.  


Just as he reached out to shake the other male awake though, Lorcan burst into the clearing, breathing and sweating heavily. He was carrying an armload of fire wood and, as he neared the fire to set it down, the light of the flames exposed his mud smeared hands and face and his disheveled hair.  
Gavriel stood up and left Rowan sleeping.  


“Sorry, I was out there past your shift probably, wasn’t I?” Lorcan said as evenly as he could while still trying to catch his breath as though he had sprinted all the way back.  


“Do you know how long it’s been?” Gavriel snapped.  


Lorcan didn’t say anything as he stacked the firewood next to the fire and built the flames up a bit.  


“It’s been three hours, Lorcan!” He answered for the silent male.  


“I already apologized.” Lorcan growled back. “I won’t do it twice.”  


“You think this is about my shift?!” Gavriel snarled and he heard Rowan start awake behind him at the sound of his anger. Oh, well. He might as well hear this too. “Lorcan, something is wrong. Tell me what it is. Were you ambushed out there?”  


Lorcan’s dirt smeared jaw flexed and he snapped. “No.”  


“Were you ambushing someone or something else?”  


“No.”  


“Did you lose consciousness again out there?”  


No response.  


Gavriel took in a sharp breath of air. The past three hours. For the past three hours, Lorcan was lying out there in the forest. Unconscious. If a Valg creature had found him he would be dead, or worse they would be facing him as their enemy now.  


Both he and Rowan immediately scented the air for Valg. There wasn’t anything. Just Lorcan’s scent of midnight rain and his pounding heart as he tried to smother the scents of fear and pain from them.  


“What happened to your face?” Rowan asked, blinking sleep out of his eyes as he sat up.  


“Oh, you too?” Lorcan snapped.  


“I have every right to question you, and you know it.” Rowan’s response was quiet and dark. ‘Every right to assume you will betray us again’ was woven in his tone.  


Lorcan’s black gaze met Rowan’s unflinchingly and he lied. “I tripped.”  


Lorcan. Tripped. Right.  


Rowan’s gaze hardened and his face went still as stone. Gavriel could feel both males sizing each other up and see each of them tensing, wondering if the other would strike. A low howling wind, icy cold, whipped through the clearing and black nets began to web through Lorcan’s fingers.  


“That’s enough. Both of you.” He stepped bodily between them. “Rowan, we gave you the night. Go back to sleep. Lorcan…” He didn’t know exactly what to say to Lorcan. Tell me what’s wrong with you right now so I can fix it? Yeah, that’d go over real well. “You take watch. I’m tired.” The dark male nodded. “And if there’s something wrong,” Gavriel growled under his breath to the demi-fae. “Either you will tell me, or I will figure it out.”  


He was met with a flashing onyx glare and silence that he glared right back at before he stalked over to his pack and laid out his bedroll at Rowan’s feet in a defensive position.  


Rowan muttered a few choice words about Lorcan, that the Commander would most definitely still hear, and flipped over to face the woods instead of the fire as he growled himself back to sleep.  


Gavriel turned over himself and waited to hear the hiss and the groan of Lorcan easing himself down to the ground as if in pain, and then for the deepening of Rowan’s breathing, before he let himself rest for awhile. 

He didn’t mention his fear of Maeve’s possible plot. He wouldn’t until he was sure. 

***  


They set out at day break and Rowan eagerly shifted to is hawk form as soon as they had camp packed up. Lorcan carried most of it so the other two could shift and cover more ground in their other forms. Lorcan hated shifting, so he usually traveled in fae form. 

Gavriel hesitated in handing the pack to Lorcan, gold healing eyes flitting over the Commander’s form as if looking for an injury. Lorcan bared his teeth and snarled at Gavriel before snatching the pack from the gold eyed male and shouldering in in silent fury and stalking off into the dark of the woods.  


Gavriel gave Rowan an exasperated look but Rowan just shrugged and shifted before flapping off into the sky. Part of him was glad that Lorcan was suffering. Aelin was suffering. Lorcan should too. Part of him worried, but he was too tired to focus on that part and Lorcan had always been a solid, non-breakable person to take his wrath out on. Lorcan would be fine. That much Rowan knew.  


He circled up high and viewed the huge expanse of Wendelyn, stretching beneath him. Gold fields and green trees and in the distance the turquoise of the sea wove together a beautiful carpet tapestry the humans weren’t even aware they walked upon. There were so many things that Rowan saw up here that most intelligent creatures never saw. He wondered as the air groomed through his wings, what wyvern wings felt like without the feathers that rippled in the wind.  


It was a meaningless contemplation, meant to distract himself from the agony of once again flying over the skies of the country he’d met his mate in. Not that he’d had any idea at the time. He had been in such a dark bitter place in his soul and she in hers, they had felt nothing but judgment and hate and threat in the air between them as he took her from the city and out into the green of the forest.  


He wished they had more time… that they’d realized it much sooner. That he'd been ready to accept it sooner. That so many things he said, venomous arrows he had unwittingly launched, had been kept in the quiver and that he’d pulled her closer, held her sooner, kissed her deeper.  


His chest ached with the loss of her next to him every night. His magic wailed inside of him, as he forced himself to shift so often and scent the wind, when it was one of the only things keeping her alive. He could feel how drained she was, how his fireheart barely clung to the embers and ashes of her magnificent soul flames. Pretty soon he’d have to choose a shape and stick to it, fae or hawk. He didn’t want to use any strength that she might need.  


He tore himself from his thoughts and scoured the forest below him. Up ahead was a small village and then a large expanse of untamed horse grazes waving gold as Aelin’s hair. Down below the trees were beginning to thin and he could make out Lorcan’s frame, shouldering the pack and running between the trees, a flash of black, and occasionally the flash of tawny fur let Rowan know that Gavriel was keeping pace right behind the still in fae form male.  


Rowan made a slight bank to the right and flew ahead to skim over the village and assess places to stay or avoid. 

***  


Elide Blackbeak was sore. Sore beyond sore. Her hips and knees and aching back were grumbling choice curses at her as she slid off Asterin’s Wyvern and hobbled over to where Sorrel was relieving herself behind a boulder.  


The stone faced witch didn’t seem surprised when Elide hobbled over to a boulder next to her and muttered.  


“I’m not used to pants and leathers. Any tips?”  


“Squat with your knees as wide as your shoulders. Don’t pull your pants down beneath your knees.” Sorrel ordered, nothing out of the ordinary about squatting behind boulders and asking for advice on such topics. There was something freeing about travelling with witches such as these.  


Elide’s knees trembled as she squatted and to her horror, she found she couldn’t get up again after she’d finished. Sorrel had apparently waited for her though and strode over to offer the new blackbeak a hand up.  


“You’ll get used to flying.” She offered as a word of encouragement.  


Elide groaned but offered Sorrel a nod of quiet thanks before joining the other witches in the clearing. Setting up camp apparently didn’t consist of much for the witches who didn’t bother with fires, slept under their wyvern’s wings and ate their meat raw, but Elide did what she could, helping skin a deer, offering to sharpen daggers, scraping down mud caked boots, re- braiding hair, learning everything as she went.  


Manon flew in later on Abraxos after scouting out a radius of ten miles.  


“Secure.” She offered sharply as she slid off Abraxos; smooth a butter and not a stiff bone in her body Elide noticed with a slight twinge of jealousy. Immortals had it so easy sometimes.  


“Report?” Manon snapped at Asterin.  


“Four deer and three rabbits. Weapons are sharpened or being sharpened and boots are scraped and back on. We’re ready to fly at dawn.” Aestrin reported immediately.  


Elide cringed. Dawn? Really? It was almost midnight already! They only slept for a few hours every night. Was that all that immortal bodies required? She wondered if Lorcan let her sleep much longer than he ever needed to and then shoved any thought of him from her mind.  


Instead she focussed on Aelin. How could she save Aelin? What could she do for Aelin? Learning to fight like a witch seemed a good place to start. At least next time on the beach she wouldn’t be a crying, helpless mess.  


“Will you teach me to fight?” She asked Manon as soon as Asterin stalked away to rub her wyvern down before restrapping her saddle for the night. They slept with saddles on in case of a mid-night attack.  


Manon knelt down over one of the deer that Elide had skinned. She examined the skinning silently, before slashing a section of the bloody left flank off and handing it to Elide, raw. The girl’s stomach flipped as warm blood dribbled through her fingers and splattered her boots before she scooted them out of the way.  


“Eat before fighting. First rule. Always make sure you care for your best weapon; your body. Learn to eat like a witch, then we’ll teach you to fight like one.”  


Elide’s stomach growled, but she wasn’t sure if it was because of hunger or revulsion. She lifted the crimson soaked meat to her face and took a sniff of the copper and iron scent. She gagged on her own tongue. Only when she found Manon’s gold eyes tracking her every movement did she steel her mind and belly long enough to chomp down on the meat and tear a chunk off. Blood dribbled down her chin and she choked again as she realized raw muscle was chewy, but Manon grinned at her and clapped her on the back.  


“Exactly. Eat the whole thing.”  


Elide’s eyes blew up like bellows as she took in the size of the chunk. It was as large as her thigh likely-- she snapped her eyes shut at the thought of her own flesh and the deer threatened mutiny in her mouth even from the dead.  


“At least half.” Manon gave a amused chuckle. “Are you telling me your fae cooked everything for you?”  


“He’s not my fae!” Elide insisted through the same mouthful of meat that she couldn’t properly chew. But yes, Lorcan cooked everything for her.  


“Just swallow.” Manon instructed and Elide who squeezed her eyes shut to accomplish such a task. A shudder snaked down her spine as the chunk slowly slid into her stomach, slimy and slick as a slug.  


She overcame her revulsion momentarily to drive her point home.  


“He’s not mine.”  


Manon gave her a knowing smirk and Elide wanted to rip it off her face. “Well he sure as Hellas isn’t anyone else's.”  


Elide opened her mouth to protest in fury but Manon reached to wipe blood off her chin with a cold white finger and said, “Finish your meat, Elide. Then go talk to Lin and show her your ankle. She’ll design a brace for you.”  


Then in a flash of white braid the Blackbeak Crochan heir was snatching her own share of dinner and stalking over to where Abraxos was sniffing out the best pine clump to rest under.  


“You sleep with me.” She called over her shoulder and Elide angrily took another bite of her meat. Why was everyone giving her orders? Smothering her? Elide do this. Elide, you are doing this. Elide eat. Elide clean. Elide sleep here. Sleep there. She was finally free of slavery and imprisonment but it was as though some god or goddess had stamped “hatchling” on her forehead and now every immortal or powerful person who came across her couldn’t help but claim her as their own.  


Which was fine.  


But irritating.  


Elide sighed and eyed the chunk of now cooling meat reproachfully, “You know, I don’t enjoy this anymore than you do.” She informed it, before forcing herself to take another bite.


	5. Not Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For PoisonEcartlate and your helpful comment. Thanks!

Chapter Five  


Manon was feeling the absence of the Princling. She tried convincing herself that she wasn’t. Tried tossing and turning fitfully next to Elide, checking on the sleeping witchling at random as though she were an infant that might stop breathing in the middle of the night. She groaned and flopped back over and tried to think of anything, anything but the blue eyed princling. Anything but the feeling of his standing and sleeping next to her. She was fine alone. Hse had been for decades before that little human princling was born. She could think of other things. She hissed when all that came up was more Princling thoughts and threw herself over again.  


Abraxos gave a sleepy growl and lifted a wing to glare at her, informing her beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was being a nuisance and was keeping him and his precious Elide from much needed sleep.  


“Picking favorites now are we?” She hissed to the beast who just narrowed his eyes at her. “Fine.” She hauled herself to her feet and stalked out into the night chill.  


Her breath came in silvery puffs as she tipped her chin back and took in the stars. Calculate their position. They had arrived on the continent ahead of the main group three days early, and were taking their time flying up it now. They had scheduled places to stop and hunt Crochans, not to kill but to make amends with. If that was possible. 

Everytime she blinked, the Wing Leader saw a Crochan face she’d killed. Old weathered crones, fresh young maidens, and everything in between.  


She sighed as she looked at the milky expanse of the sky and shut her eyes to go through those faces again. To beat herself with the knowledge that she couldn’t remember them all. That eventually the blue of their blood became as common as the red of their capes. The last face that flickered through her eyes was Rhiannon. Her half-sister.  


Her gold eyes snapped open in the silver of the moonlight and she promised silently to each of them not to forget. She would not wear guilt. She would cast the past aside if it threatened the future. But she would not forget. She wondered if the Princling remembered every face he killed while under the Valg thrall.  


A scaly nose pressed into her palm and Abraxos gave a low throated chortle and tilted his angular head to the side. A question. Concern.  


“Oh, so now you care.” She teased without smiling and glanced over to where Abraxos’s wing still stretched across Elide’s sleeping figure like a canopy of warmth. When Elide woke she’d look up at the light filtering through the tough skin of the wyvern like the babe’s view of the womb. “Watch her.” She ordered, scratching Abraxos under the chin for a moment before walking over to pass each of her sleeping witches. She felt Edda shadowing her but she didn’t acknowledge her cousin. Edda would sleep after Briar had her chance. Besides, the black of the night was when her cousins where most alive.  


“Manon?” Asterin whispered and her wyvern opened her wings. She likely smelled Manon as she passed.  


“It’s nothing.” Manon murmured back kneeling next to Asterin. Gods, she couldn’t get over the fact that Asterin was alive. She knew she looked like a fool crouching there by her wyvern, gold eyes drinking Asterin in like she was on the brink of death by dehydration, but she couldn’t get over it. She had feared she’d never see that wicked, wild grin again or watch that stream of golden hair billow in the wind as she threw her head back and whooped for joy as her wyvern nosedived.  


“Nothing, doesn’t keep you up.” Asterin said seriously.  


“What do you think of Elide?” Manon changed the subject.  


Asterin frowned and leaned against the warmth of the wyvern’s side. The beast gave a huff of satisfaction at having her rider so close.  


“I think she’s too thin and weak.” Was the response.  


Manon rolled her eyes. “Obviously. I mean about her training. I’m asking your opinion, don’t waste your chance.”  


Asterin snorted and stretched with a yawn, “So obviously we need to fatten her up and put some muscle on her. Then iron teeth and nails--”  


Manon shook her head. “She has magic in her blood. I wonder if the iron wouldn’t harm more than help.”  


“Do you think she’ll ever learn to wield her magic though?” Asterin pointed out.  


“If she ever decides the fae is worth forgiving, or at the very least using.” Manon shrugged.  


Asterin chuckled bitterly. “Yes, I suppose that’s a lesson we ought to teach her; how to use a man or male without the messy emotional ties.” Something tightened in Asterin’s throat and her words came out strangled.  


“That fae is nothing like your hunter.” Manon murmured quietly and Asterin flashed her a grateful smile.  


“Still, we could have her ride a day with Vesta. I’m sure she has several horror stories to callous the little blackbeak up.” Asterin teased.  


Manon rolled her eyes and smirked. Yes, that was just what they needed, for Vesta to teach Elide how to use someone to her pleasure and then brutally slaughter them. As if that wouldn’t traumatize the witchiling before the battles even begun.  


“Although,” Asterin yawned again. “I don’t want to ruin little Elide. I kind of like her as she is.”  


Manon nodded. “No, Vesta then.”  


“What about just nails.” Asterin suggested. “Didn’t you say your prince took iron to try and suppress his magic? Maybe if it was just claws it would anchor her. Besides, nails are removable if she gets magic training and it’s more hindrance than help. Teeth, not so much.”  


Manon nodded. This is why she asked these questions of Asterin. Not only was her second wild and free and rash at times, she also thought things through just as carefully in other times.  


“I’ll start working with her on strength building.” Asterin offered. “Are you having a brace made for her ankle?”  


Manon nodded again. Elide’s round eyed face looked so helpless sometimes. Part of her wanted to just hide her from the world that had already drank in so much of her blood and sorrow. She thought of the helpless Crochan witches, who wouldn’t fight back. Not even as she tore them apart and grinned in answer to their screams. Elide would fight back. Wouldn’t she?  


“Good.” Asterin nodded. “Food. Fat. Muscle. Brace. Taining. Nails. Sounds like a plan.”  


Again Manon nodded. She thought of her half-sister, of her pity of what Manon had become. Of her blue blood coating Manon’s hands, her flesh being devoured by her ironteeth sisters. Was she capable of killing anyone? Would she actually have killed Asterin? Would she kill Elide?  


“Wing Leader.” Asterin tilted her head to the side. “Permission to speak freely?”  


Manon rolled her eyes. “When do you not?”  


“Oh,” Asterin gave her a wicked smirk. “I was holding back while we lived under your grandmother. Be careful Manon, if you give permission, I might never shut up.”  


Manon remembered seeing Asterin’s hair tie in the Hound’s hand. The words falling from her perfect and disgusting mouth, ‘she screamed for her stillborn babe. Begged us to kill her in the end.’  


“Permission granted.” She said hoarsely. She never wanted Asterin to shut up. She never wanted to think that she’d lost her cousin-sister’s voice again.  


“You may not know this,” Asterin said. “But witches actually respond very well to physical affection, like any other intelligent, natural born person. Even Crochan Blackbeak heirs.” Amusement and pain flickered in those gold flecked black eyes. “Sleep with me tonight?”  


Manon frowned. “But Elide--”  


“Is safe with Abraxos.”  


“Why would I sleep with you?” Manon questioned practically. “We are not interested romantically and neither of us needs protection tonight.” Those were the only reasons for sleeping with another being.  


Asterin chuckled and shook her head. “Because you are alone. And tonight you need to know you are not.”  


Manon frowned and opened her mouth to protest in utter bafflement. But Asterin was already snuggling down into her wraps and opening up a side for Manon to join her. 

The Wing leader hesitated, still not sure what to make of this. But eventually just the thought of having her sister so close again, of not just knowing but feeling that she was alive--listening to her breathing, her heartbeat-- was enough to make Manon slip under Asterin’s wyvrn’s wing and slide into place next to her cousin.  


Asterin threw the blankets over Manon and wrapped a strong arm about her sister’s shoulders drawing her close. Manon stared at that sun kissed face, that teasing grin, that golden hair and those glinting black eyes.  


“You aren’t, Manon. You always assume that you are, but you aren’t.”  


Manon felt herself softening under Asterin’s fingers as her second ran them through her hair.  


“I’m not what?” She asked, still growing accustomed to this new side of her sister. This affectionate, mothering side that she hid from the Blackbeaks and Manon’s grandmother. That she had to hide. That she was now using to teach Manon.  


“You aren’t alone.” Asterin promised. “You’re never alone.”  


Manon closed her eyes and breathed deeply, pretending to fall into sleep when in actuality she was trying to keep hot saline from leaking from her eyes.  


But she wasn’t alone.  


Not tonight.

She hadn't even realized alone was what she was feeling until her sister promised her she wasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE COMMENT! :)


	6. Already Mine.

Chapter Six  


Lorcan was making an impressive pace for someone who kept passing out at random and was refusing to rest or eat, Gavriel noted. It didn’t assure Gavriel of anything, other than Lorcan was still in fact Lorcan, because no Valg would push themself like that.  


They were smarter than that.  


Gavriel kept up easily behind him in his feline form, slinking through the canopy and watching demi-fae’s pace and stride, as well as their surroundings. There was something following them. Lorcan had slowed his pace just enough say as much to Gavriel and then sprinted ahead again. Competitive much?  


Still, Gavriel was begrudgingly grateful the dark haired male had informed him of the possible threat. He had been so focussed on watching Lorcan for weaknesses, for any hint that he still may be in Maeve’s noose, that he hadn’t even noticed the strange dark scent that leaked weakly into the forest air. It was Valg.  


“Four miles back?” Lorcan had guessed. Gavriel had agreed, but whatever was tracking them was much closer now. And by the way Lorcan was slowing down to run next to Gavriel, the demi-fae was aware of it’s nearing proximity as well.  


“Where is Rowan?” Lorcan murmured as he ran next to Gavriel, his breath almost caught by now. Dark eyes flitted the sky and Gavriel read the never spoken worry always present. Lorcan was not one who gave up the few he protected easily. Few ever found themselves under that protection, but once they did, it was even harder to get out of it than in. Rowan had even muttered to Gavriel a story of the heartless demi-fae sending a pack of Wyrdhound’s after him only to jump into the fight when it was obvious that Rowan and Aedion weren’t going to win.  


Gavriel rolled his eyes. Not that he wasn’t grateful that Lorcan had already decided not to leave the two males to their fate, but did he even have to scheme if he still thought of Rowan as that heartbroken mateless male he found in the woods and nursed and beat back to health?  
Still, it was concerning that Rowan wasn’t directly above them. He should have scented the valg as well and circled at least closer. None of them should be arrogant enough to face a Valg alone, not when it might be a Prince. Even Lorcan was sticking close.  


Suddenly the demi-fae stopped dead in his tracks, dirt spraying up like a tidal wave under his boots. Gavriel scrambled to stop a few paces ahead of him and spun around, tilting his head in question to the sudden maneuver.  


Lorcan’s black eyes were wide and his face paled. Gavriel’s heart started pounding like a storm. Lorcan’s hand flew, almost like he was going to touch a wound of some kind in his abdomen, but he stopped it half way. Black found gold as he whispered, “It’s this way,” and spun to the right to bolt through the trees.  


Gavriel frowned and sniffed the air again. The wind was blowing the scent in from the south, so why was Lorcan sprinting to the east?  


But Gavriel had long ago learned to trust Lorcan’s instinct when it came to tracking. There were a great many things that Gavriel did not trust the demi-fae’s instincts on, but tracking was not one of them.  


He coiled and sprang into the chase behind the dark male. 

***  


\----- 

All Rowan could think was Aelin. Aelin. His fireheart. He’d failed her.  


And he sprinted up the hill and over the lane. Gravel and dust spat behind him in hissing fury, the only sound that echoed through the mountain pastures. Where were the goats? Lyria’s precious goats that she insisted on naming and refused to have butchered? Where was Daisy and Lilly and Violet? His heart ached under the strain of his run, but fourteen miles up the mountains had not slowed his pace.  


Lyria. Lyria, his little flower. His mate.  


He finally reached the apex of their pasture hill and a strangled cry broke his ribs in.  


Her flowers. The baskets hanging from every eave of the house. Burned.  


Her flowers had been burned.  


The door had been broken in.  


He flew across the pasture. Begging the gods to have hidden her. His Lyria. His little flower. Begged them to have held her when he should have. Protected her when he should have. Lyria who couldn’t kill a mouse. Lyria who shuddered at the sight of his sword. His Lyria.  


Their black hound, Orchid, lay dead in the lane. Her soft pelted body lying separate from her head. He couldn’t scream. Couldn’t breathe. If Orchid was dead, then Lyria--  


He spun into the doorway. Crumpled to the ground.  


The creature feeding on him laughed as he broke. Forever.  


Every time he saw this, he broke. And he never healed. Not really.  


Her carmel hair covered in a fine layer of dust after lying here on the floor for so long. Days. Her face paper white and sunken in, already decaying. Her blue eyes were milky and vacant. Her full lips opened in silent scream. Vermin had already begun to feed on her.  


His Lyria. His little Lyria. Stretched out on the floor with a sword through her chest and a dagger in her belly. So big. So round. So pregnant. So dead.  


He hadn’t even known.  


He crumpled to the floor next to her and prayed to Hellas to take him too. To strike him dead here next to her for not being here. For abandoning his little flower. His Lyria. His mate. 

But she wasn’t. The bloody shirt on the beach, that was all that was left of his mate. He had lied to Lyria. He was not her mate. She could have been happy. She could have been safe. If only he’d never convinced them of their belonging together.  


And only when he lost Aelin, could he understand what she was to him.  


Because the only mate of Rowan Whitethorn, was a dead mate.  


He knew she was dead.  


His soul withered in his chest. His magic was leached from his bones. His body crumpled to dust because she was gone. His fire was gone. His soul was gone.  


His Aelin. His fireheart. His mate, was---

Someone roared at him and he let them  


‘Kill me’ his soul begged. ‘Kill me’  


Perhaps he’d see Aelin again. And beg her for forgiveness in the realm of the dead--

\-----

Light. Blinding light. Breath. Burning breath.  


He gasped as he was bodily thrown from the cold fingers of a black collared man.  


He hit a tree so hard it cracked under the force Lorcan had thrown him with. Rowan’s breath left his lungs as it was knocked from his chest.  


Lorcan.  


Commander.  


Traitor.  


Standing between a Valg Prince and Rowan.  


Aelin was not dead. Tears burst into Rowan’s eyes and his sobs burned his chest like acid. Aelin was not dead. Not yet. He thought… he thought…  


“Never come between a prince and his prey, half-breed.” The Valg hissed. Lorcan dropped the pack and slashed his weapon out just as the Valg lunged for him. Inky black power threaded from the Valg’s fingers as he grappled for a hold on the Commander.  


Gavriel burst into the clearing snarling.  


“Get to Whitethorn!” Lorcan roared at the gold eyed male before spinning around and sprinting away. To Rowan’s eternal surprise, the Valg licked his lips and grinned, before deciding Lorcan the better meal and giving chase.  


The world began to fade and Gavriel’s face marbled across the sky as Rowan fell into the waiting arms of death or sleep.  


He did not know the difference.  


And he did not care.

***  


The thing inside Lorcan pulsed as the Valg snarled after him. It screeched and twisted and shot pains of ice and agony though him as though snapping at a leash to get back to it’s master.  


He thought this thing inside of him was Maeve’s doing.  


He was wrong.  


It was very Valg.  


He hoped there was enough of Rowan to save. He was already mostly drained by the time Lorcan reached the clearing. The Prince’s eyes were already glassy, his frame already mostly sucked away, his face sunken in as though he’d not eaten in months. The thing within Lorcan had led him straight to the Prince’s, Fae and Valg, even as Rowan’s wind sent them off their scent. He followed the pain in his abdomen like a compass, and it led him right to the Valg.  


He spared a quick glance over his shoulder and saw the grinning face of the Valg trailing close behind. He wondered if he could outrun it. If he sprinted straight through Wendlyn, could he run the host out? Were the valg restrained by the limits of their hosts? This host was human. Perhaps he could just keep going… but they were already running well over sixty miles an hour, dodging between trees and hurtling over boulders. Human’s couldn’t run that fast anyways.  


So if the thing could run it’s host faster than the body was naturally capable, he would have to assume that the thing could run just as far.  


Never had he thought that there actually might be an enemy he didn’t even bother fighting and fled from, but with that thing pulsing inside his belly as a full fledged valg Prince tailed him, Lorcan didn’t know what else to do but run.  


He would face it eventually. He’d go for decapitation, and hope that the thing within him couldn’t do anything other than pulse…  


And cause excruciating pain that made him black out every time it flared.  


He started muttering curses under his breath. At least he was still leading it away from the Cadre.  


The Valg cackled behind him, not even out of breath,  


“You can run, half-breed, but you’re already mine, and you know it.”


	7. Don't You Want to Know Why?

Chapter Seven  


The light staccato of the valg and demi-fae’s footsteps was rapid and rising to a steep crescendo.  


Lorcan’s breath was short in his lungs. He’d run well over fourteen miles before the valg showed up, and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been sprinting, but it was long enough to set and ache in his chest and numb his legs. He rarely spared a glance over his shoulder anymore, he was so focussed on how fast he could go and how long he could hold that pace.  


He saw that they were reaching the end of the wooded area and barely scented the domestic waft of human homes before he pulled a sharp ninety-degree turn and spun to the west, still away from Gavriel healing Rowan.  


Hopefully the golden eyed male was still healing Rowan at least, and the Prince wasn’t already dead. Lorcan and the Valg Prince were probably ten miles from them now, so it would at least take the Valg sometime to make it back to the other males after he drained Lorcan.  


Not that he was resigning himself to the fate, just recognizing the likelihood of it.  


The pain in his abdomen was growing unbearable. He’d sweat through his shirt and his lungs light afire every time he took a heaving breath. He shouldn’t be this close to exhaustion yet. Not if he were himself. But he wasn’t himself and the flesh tearing anchor in his stomach reminded him not so subtly of that.  


A few centuries ago, he ran from Wendelyn to Doranelle with a four inch dagger wound in his side. This pain was akin to that. Unrelenting. Pounding and throbbing with every beat of his heart, erupting in boiling cold every time he took a breath.  


“Slow down, half-breed.” The valg cackled behind him, and to his horror-- as though an anchor was set deep within his very bones-- he did.  


He bit down on a scream as the tether between him and the valg grew stronger and pulled so hard against him, he wondered his his insides might in fact soon be his outsides. Sweat beaded down his forehead and he kept stumbling forward, straining toward the scent of water away from the suffocating scent of valg. He’d rather drown.  


“You’re steeped in agony,” The valg whispered three inches from Lorcan’s ear and the demi-fae lurched away from him, hair rising all along his spine and arms. The valg was trotting next to him as he stumbled along now instead of sprinted, his pace dramatically decreased by the burning ice in his belly weighing him down and cutting him in half.  


“And you don’t even know why.” The valg’s face split into too wide a grin, his white teeth flashing in the filtered light of the forest. “Don’t you want to know why, half-ling?” 

The prince crooned. “I can show you.”  


A hand reached out toward Lorcan’s face and he cringed from it. Beginning to clumsily try and evade the creature.  


“I can show you all that you have buried and burned. All you have forgotten can be brought back--” Cool fingers grazed his cheek.  


Panic surged through Lorcan’s spine, offering him just enough a burst of quick energy to send him surging through the pain ripping him in half. He grit his teeth and panted a scream as he threw everything he had into running just a hundred more yards. Just ninety more yards. Just--  
The Valg snarled in fury as Lorcan pulled away again, muscle and sinew and marrow and bone screaming at him to stop, but fear pushing him forward anyways.  


Eighty more yards.  


“You can not escape, half-ling.” The valg hissed behind him. “You can not escape what you carry inside.”  


Lorcan began weaving as dark a net of his power as he could behind him like a wall of black and death and fear. The prince snarled as he clawed at it, tearing it apart even as it wove together.  


Twenty yards. Ten yards.  


It had been so long since Lorcan had shifted. So long it hurt as it tore along his bones and reshaped him, remade him. He gasped in pain as tears and sweat blurred his vision and he forced himself through it. Forced the shift. Ripped into another skin. Charged at his destination.  


Five yards.  


And the thundering footsteps beneath him stopped. He wove the net behind him thicker. Darker. Heavier.  


He reached his destination. He did not hesitate.  


And tumbled over the edge of a ravine. 

  


The prince behind him tore through the black net without checking his speed.  


The answering shriek of the valg echoed the beat of Lorcan’s ten foot wingspan as black wings strained to pull up, to surge away from the approaching river floor.  


Water roared. Valg screamed. Demi-fae strained.  


It wasn’t quite as far a drop as Lorcan had anticipated, only a hundred and fifty feet, and his five inch talons grazed the surface of the water. Two seconds later the Valg’s host crashed into the cement hard rushing water and he screamed no longer.  


Lorcan surged up to the rim again. Pain tearing him open. Splitting him in half. Burning him with ice. His vision flickered and he screamed just to keep himself awake, his voice echoing off the canyon walls in the scream of a midnight black eagle.  


He held no disillusionment that the fall had done anything but maim the valg, but the fact couldn’t be helped as he surged past the summit of the rim and barely felt himself shift back to fae form before the world flickered black again. The darkness boiled up around his soul and he drowned in pain.  


He wasn’t even aware if he ever hit ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment!!
> 
> Fun Facts about eagles: 
> 
> 1: They are at the top of the food chain, birds of prey  
> 2: Depending on their size, the larger ones often hunt fish, snakes, small mammals like sloths, monkey's, and even fox and deer when food is scarce.  
> 3: Females are generally bigger than males and have longer talons.  
> 4: Eagles mate for life, build their nest with their mate, and often return to the same one every year.  
> 5: Most eagles are not as big as Lorcan... but he's a seven foot tall demi fae... so, yeah ;)


End file.
